ABIT KV7 (KT600): Budget Performance in a Small Package
by Evan Lieb on September 7, 2003 10:42 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
As the computer hardware enthusiast world turns, so does ABIT, generally regarded as the leading enthusiast motherboard maker in the world based on their track record over the last two years. All motherboard makers produce an enthusiast motherboard that turns out to be a lemon. ASUS has done it, MSI has done it, Gigabyte has done it, and ABIT has done it. However, ABIT has been much more consistent with their offerings in the last 18 months or so, which is why we give them the nod over ASUS, generally regarded as the best motherboard maker for reliable desktop motherboards.
Anyway, today we take a close look at ABIT’s latest creation, the KV7. The KV7 is powered by VIA’s KT600 chipset. The KT600 chipset was updated to include official support for 400MHz FSB Athlon XP processors several months ago, and finally hit retail channels last July. If you took a look at the half a dozen or so KT600 motherboard reviews that we’ve published the last few weeks, you would have noticed that all the KT600 motherboards we’ve tested so far have reached in excess of 400MHz FSB, and most of the time, well beyond. This is normal for any Socket A motherboard; the difference is in how much further you can go beyond 400MHz FSB, and today, like any AnandTech motherboard review, we really stress test the KV7 to see exactly how much juice we can squeeze out of this board.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
34 Comments
View All Comments
Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
Haha, thanks for clarifying that #13. ;)Take care,
Evan
Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
I think #5 is referring to the apparent omission of the word "look" in the sentence. I congratulate #5 on taking the time to carefully proofread the article in search of typographical errors. As I was more focused on the substance of the review (which I thought was excellent, conistent with my general experience with Anandtech), I missed this major point that seriously affected the readability of the entire article! :)Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
Oh, forgot to comment on a couple other things.#1, Anand does more than you'll ever know. Right now he's been relegated to two things: 1) Technology reviews, which he is best suited for because he is easily the most well versed AnandTech editor. And 2) administrative duties such as hiring new editors (Andrew Ku, Wesley Fink, and more people you'll hear about soon), getting the products and content editors need, and just running the web site (which includes a countless list of things).
#3, set your FSB to 175MHz (350MHz DDR), set your DRAM speed to DDR400, download CPU-Z v. 1.18, and then look in the memory section and see what your memory is running at. Your memory should adjust itself accordingly to its FSB.
Evan Lieb - Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - link
#10, I was unaware that ABIT has that policy. I'll have to confirm that with them. Even if that is the case, other motherboard makers do the same thing, and quite honestly it's not that big of a deal IMO.#5, how is that sentence not readable? Do you have any suggestions?
Take care,
Evan
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#7, they're not charging for standard shipping, just the upgrade to express, which is understandable and was only in my message for info (since it wasn't included in the review). I even don't have a major problem with the $7 "processing fee", but to charge $150 ahead-of-time and then the additional time of waiting for the "check is in the mail" refund seems to be less of a good policy compared to other's policy of charging only if the defective unit isn't returned with 30 days.Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#7, what he explained is a quite common thing on nForce2 motherboards, especially among advanced users. I cower in fear everytime I update my bios or drivers fearing either my system or board will be hosed. You never know when you'll download that bios or driver that will just decide to kill everything (*cries about having to repair install windows xp after installing 2.41 and again 2.42, as if I didn't learn my lesson first time :P*).Granted most of these problems disappear if you leave your system alone and stick to the 2.03 driver set (if you can stand the little quirks about it), the occurrence of such problems are seemingly less in the latest VIA chipsets.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#6, I (#3) did not want to run FSB/RAM asynchronously. I want to run it in sync no matter what the FSB is set to, but the board has no clear setting for that. The available RAM settings are 266, 333, 400 and SPD in wich it goes with whatever the RAM module is rated to run at. There is no setting to simply let it follow the FSB as in all other boards I have ever encountered. I could guess that it does in fact follow the FSB anyway, but have no way to confirm it. Especially when the BIOS reports one of those set RAM speeds when booting up, regardless of FSB frequency. (I know of the AGP/PCI business but it's irrelevant to this specific technical issue)Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
#2, of course ABIT is going to charge for shipping, it's ridiculous to think they're going to eat those fees.And by the way #4, nForce2 motherboards are much better than KT600 motherboards in general. This is fact, why try to deny it by claiming your experience is the norm. Idiot.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
to 3there's no need to run amd based systems FSB/mem async, it doesn't get you more speed. you'd better manipulate with multiplier. if you raise your CPU's FSB the mem/agp/pci come all along. for example if you raise your kt600 fsb to 220 your mem speed will also be 220MHz (you can't run it on pc2100 or 2700 levels to normalize your mem speed, but only on pc3200 mode) and yor agp/pci will be 73,5MHz/36,7MHz.
for example, I'm running my kt333 at 200FSB and my agp/pci is 80/40. and I cant understand how come anantech guys only got out maximum of 210 mHz fsb, i belive some peolple here need to learn more about overclocking. I've got even 215MHz of FSB out of my kt333. isn't that strange? has there been a downward evolution by VIA.
Anonymous User - Monday, September 8, 2003 - link
"Anyway, today we take a close at ABIT's latest creation, the KV7."Please take the time to make your articles more readable. Thank you.